


more than state lines

by preromantics



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Phone Calls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-30
Updated: 2010-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Chris calls after the pictures come out, because he needs someone to call, someone who isn’t his agent trying to muffle her snorts of laughter into her arm. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	more than state lines

**Author's Note:**

> Advent fic. Originally posted 12/02/2010.

Chris calls after the pictures come out, because he needs someone to call, someone who isn’t his agent trying to muffle her snorts of laughter into her arm, and he hasn't called Zach yet for the day. 

Zach, at least, doesn’t bother with the muffling.

“Are you really -- ” Zach breaks into another bought laughter on the phone, which doesn’t exactly make Chris feel any better about what he just admitted. “Chris,” Zach says, drawing his name out, “I’m sorry, but it’s only funny if you can automatically come up with a reason for being seen reading a preteen vampire romance novel that isn’t something akin to actually voluntarily choosing to.”

“I didn’t choose to buy it,” Chris says, rolling his eyes at his phone, “I just grabbed the wrong bag at the store.”

“You chose to pick it up, open it, and bring it out in public, though,” Zach says, obviously trying to straighten out his voice to try for serious, but failing, voice scratchy on the other end of the line. “I still can’t believe you.”

Chris doesn’t say anything for a second. “You know,” he says, “it’s actually --”

“If you say anything about literary integrity I’m blocking your phone number,” Zach says. 

“I wasn’t going to,” Chris says, “I was going to say it’s worse than I’ve been told.”

“Hey,” Zach says, instead of answering, sounding farther away from the phone, “I have to go -- some of us are going ice skating at Rockefeller, which is a ridiculously certifiable idea, so I have to go put on at least a second pair of pants.”

Chris pictures it, Zach skating over the ice, his arms waving around before he falls flat on his ass. “Just put a pillow over your ass and you’ll be fine,” he suggests.

“Are you saying my ass is bony, Christopher?” Zach asks, though he sounds distracted. 

Chris laughs and hangs up, looking around the room and at the book laying open on it’s spine in front of him, pretending his living room isn’t as empty as it feels.

-

They talk on the phone a lot, more than Chris means to, not wanting to bother Zach or interrupt him or whatever -- just because Chris has downtime and wants someone to talk to, doesn’t mean Zach has to always be the one to be there. Except he is.

It’s just the more they talk the more Chris realizes Zach has lots of things to do: dinners out, shows in the city, flights to catch, people to call that aren’t Chris, people to hang out with that aren’t Chris, and, well. 

“I can’t talk for long,” Zach says, early December right after he’s called Chris up.

“You can call back later,” Chris says, wanting to say something about being busy himself, maybe now isn’t a good time -- but really, the truth is, he has two journals with half-hearted notes on novels laying out and a scrabble game he’s been playing with himself all day on the coffee table, and really. 

“No, we can still talk, there’s --” Zach says, muffled for a moment -- probably changing his shirt, Chris realizes, rolling the pen in his hand over the nearest notebook on the table, scribbling endless circle loops. It’s weird, maybe, that he knows what Zach sounds like when he’s rushing to change his shirt while on the phone. 

Chris wonders where Zach is off to tonight -- dinner with a group of important people or a group of friends, or maybe with just one person, maybe a date. Zach rarely tells him when he goes out with just one person, and Chris isn’t sure if he’s thankful for that or not, but Chris knows he does. 

“-- this thing I might do in March, I’m going to talk about it with everyone during drinks, and.”

“Hey, Zach,” Chris says, without really thinking it through, dropping his pen, “have fun tonight with them.”

He hangs up. He sits back against his couch and looks at his (still empty) living room and at the bag of new books he’s bought to read next to the pile of scripts passed on to him by his agent and he realizes he just hung up on the highlight of his day -- the one person that can hold his thoughts for more time than anyone else, even when he’s all the way on the other side of the country, and -- everything is sort of shitty. 

Zach calls back three times in quick succession and Chris picks up on the fourth. He’s not (actively) a dick.

“Are you -- upset?” Zach asks, though he doesn’t sound too concern or sympathetic or anything Chris thinks he should sound like.

“Jealous?” Zach asks, when Chris doesn’t say anything either way.

Chris hangs up again. Maybe sometimes he’s a dick -- but mostly to himself.

-

Zach showing up at his door is not unexpected -- Zoe called while Zach’s flight was in the air, and told Chris to not go out, though she wouldn’t explain why. It wasn’t too far of a stretch to guess afterwards. 

He doesn’t know what to say when Zach is actually in his doorway, though. “TSA security is a bitch,” Zach says, instead of greeting him, stepping inside when Chris steps back.

“It is,” Chris agrees. “Hey.”

Zach grins at him, pushing his sunglasses up on his head, but the grin is a little off. “Why am I here?” Zach asks, throwing Chris completely off.

“I’m --” not jealous, Chris means to say, to fix their last conversation, to start to explain something, anything, because he isn’t jealous -- of what? Everyone Zach knows? Of an entire city? 

“So I should just fly back, then,” Zach says, his sunglasses still up on top of his head, standing in Chris’ foyer.

“No,” Chris says, and that answer, at least, it’s automatic. 

Zach’s shoulders relax in one movement, and he closes his eyes. “You could’ve come out to New York again,” he says, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

“I could have,” Chris agrees. He takes Zach’s bag from his hand and sets it on the floor.

“You could’ve said something on the phone,” Zach adds, taking his sunglasses off his head and setting them on top of his bag.

“About?” Chris asks.

“How you were lonely,” Zach says, holding up a finger when Chris opens his mouth to say something, “or how you missed me, or how you’re really stupid, sometimes, God, Chris, because I’ve been waiting on the other side of the country just like I’d been waiting for over a year in LA, waiting for you to fall asleep on my shoulder after a movie one night again and not awkwardly avoid me for days after, because it meant that much to you. Waiting like an idiot myself because --”

“You,” Chris says, because he can’t help himself, and they really are stupid, layman's term and all. 

Zach pauses and looks at him -- the physical embodiment of waiting, and Chris really isn’t unintelligent or daft but -- oh.

Chris almost laughs, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a breath, “I was loney,” he says, “I missed you. I’m really stupid sometimes. I’ve been waiting for -- for anything, I just didn’t know it.”

“There,” Zach says, taking a step forward, “now that wasn’t too hard.”

“You’re an asshole,” Chris says, gravely, taking a step to match Zach’s own. 

“I few across the country between shows for you,” Zach says back, stepping forward again. 

“You arrived unannounced and didn’t even bring a housewarming gift,” Chris says, voice dropping low and light and --

“I brought you a plane ticket, seat 4b, first class,” Zach says, right up against Chris’ lips. “I’m in 4a, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” Chris says, and he closes the distance between them -- thousands of miles just hours before and only inches now in a way that finally, finally seems right.


End file.
